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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22936036">Thrilled by the still of your hand</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tijgertje/pseuds/Tijgertje'>Tijgertje</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pillars of Eternity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cunnilingus, F/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pre-Relationship, Voyeurism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:07:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22936036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tijgertje/pseuds/Tijgertje</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aloth has one hour, more or less, if his calculations are correct.</p>
<p>He is <i>so</i> close.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aloth Corfiser/The Watcher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thrilled by the still of your hand</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Despite the tags and the concept, I swear I try to keep it relatively tame. I promise it's not that graphic djskbfks<br/>Title is from "No Plan" by Hozier.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Aloth slithers beneath her sheets, the silks rustling and bunching up against his bare thighs. So smooth, like shaped water pooling  around his skin, dipping between his legs. So cool, like the ocean breeze seeping in through the partly open ship windows, raising the hairs on the back of his neck and arms. Much better than the wyr wool blankets: itchy, thick, and hot in the shared bunk space downstairs. He shifts the sheets through his fingers and thumb, lets them slide out of his palm as he imagines them wrapped around green thighs, green hips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hand bunching up the fabric, deep purple and fresh, he palms himself through the silk. Half-hard, he rubs the sheet down the length of his cock, unhurried even as he keeps his ears peeled, listening to the crew shuffle past the captain’s door. The clambering and janky cadence of a drunken Eld Engrim, or the featherlight dashing of Daelia drifting from the medicine stores to her makeshift practice, or the scratchy skittering of Mother Sharp-Rock’s claws against the wooden floorboards.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth has one hour, more or less, if his calculations are correct.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She and a handful of her companions left for the bathhouse an hour prior, and for once he was given the option to decline joining them. She’d given him a quizzical look but didn’t question it, though he’d had plenty of excuses lined up in any event. He hates lying to her, has endeavored to do little to none of it if he can help it, but this is different.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s never gone this far in his pursuits before. In the days of resting at Brighthollow, the height of it was locking the door and touching himself at midday, whenever she might come calling for him to join her adventuring party. A knock on the door and he’d put himself away, brush himself down, and no one was the wiser. The stakes were lower, then, but so was the thrill.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It has been months since he’s had any semblance of privacy on board The Menagerie. Sleeping in a communal area, the sound of Edér’s snoring mingling with the snuffling of pigs and dogs underfoot: it’s enough to drive a man insane. Picking the lock to her quarters to get some peace and quiet was fine, perfectly reasonable even. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He still has fifty-six more minutes, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By degrees and latitudes Aloth drifts down and away in the darkness of the Watcher’s room, his eyes closing, working himself through his fist. Most other times he avoids a wandering eye, but for now he indulges in the mental image of his captain in her unbuttoned shirts, the ones that barely cling to her breasts as easterly winds roll in. The tightness of her leather pants, highlighting the taut muscles of her thighs. Her sleeve cuffs rolled up to her elbows, the slight tremor of tendons beneath skin as her nimble fingers disarm a trap.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Clothes are unpeeled in his mind as his imaginations conjure an image of where she is now. Beads of water dripping off the ends of dark green hair, artfully draped over her chest as she rises out of the bathhouse pools. Vein-like branches spidering down the expanse of her back, over scars, framing her curves and hugging her hips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She finds him there, in the private pools between the puffs of steam and dressing curtains, resting while he tugs on himself. She dips a toe in, and then her foot, ankle, calf—until she is enveloped by the water, wading towards him, no flicker of judgment in her features. Only sly hunger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They are shielded from unfamiliar prying eyes, and she climbs atop him, the tip of her tongue licking slow stripes from his clavicle to his ear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He squeezes himself a little too forcefully, to rein himself in before he comes undone all too soon. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fantasy scatters when his eyes shut again, this time camouflaging him in the jungle thickets of the Cythwood, hands clasped over their mouths as they fight for silence. He imagines her hips rolling into his as his cock finally becomes fully hard; as he shudders and bucks into the sheets in reality, she sinks onto him, thighs and mouth parting but there is no sound. The droning of cicadas and other summer bugs in his mind drown out the waves rocking against the ship and the caterwauling of stray dock cats; his grunts soon join the accompaniment, everything so loud and present, almost distracting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth’s strokes grow faster, harder. The silk begins to feel less pleasurable and more rough, the friction burning. But he can’t stop, as he‘s already frittered enough time away getting lost in the length of her ears, the apples of her cheeks, the strained muscles in her thighs and biceps as she uses them to push herself up and down around him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At some point she climbs off of him, wriggles up his chest until her thighs are around his ears. Just as she lowers herself to his mouth—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is close. He is </span>
  <em>
    <span>so, so</span>
  </em>
  <span> close. A little faster, he urges himself, his hand. A little closer to the edge and then he need only push himself off to finally be done with it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is a familiar sound, familiar footsteps, lurking right outside the door. Through his panting and his haze he almost doesn’t catch it, but it’s enough to still his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The door creaks open, followed by the soft uttering of the words: “Why isn’t this still locked?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On an inbreath, he freezes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she steps through and closes the door behind herself, she freezes too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aloth? What are you—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can explain!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Neither of them move an inch, their cheeks instantly flushed, the room chilly and heavy with languor. Her eyes are riveted to where his hand is trapped, the sheets still bunched up to form the obvious outline of his actions. If anything, it makes him strain harder; he has been caught, by the subject of his desires no less, and the hardest part of it is to refrain from continuing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without looking away, Alchemilla locks the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Water drips off the end of her nose, and her poet blouse is rumpled, damp and sticking to her like a second skin. He should have factored the cloud-shrouded skies into his calculations, and the quiet peppering of rain on the bedroom window panes heightens his humiliation, but it is no matter. She is here now. She is brushing wet strands off her brow and still she watches him, one hand mechanically loosening the drawstrings of her shirt through their holes in time with the rise and fall of her chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me.” She peers out from between almost fused lashes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth’s mouth goes dry. “Excuse me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me what you were thinking about, before I came in.” She swallows. “It had to be something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He weighs his options. The truth might wedge a divide between them; he might be forever relegated to living on the boat, or be summarily booted off the second her skin crawls. A lie might be too obvious and fracture this moment further, the trust they’ve built for years irreparably shattered. He isn’t sure he can train his voice to be even, anyway, and she must know that much. The door locking brokers no room for a hasty lie or even a half-truth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You,” he admits.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hand moves to her belly, sliding to the tied knot of her trousers like a hesitant predator. “Go on. What was I—what were </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> doing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cord on her pants comes undone. His view of the room constricts until it contains only her and her hand, purposefully sliding beneath the waistband of her smalls, the rest of the room having fallen away. She gives an encouraging smile that vanishes as her lips part, her fingers finding their mark.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aching, he resumes stroking, heat in his belly reignited.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We were at the bathhouse together, in the private pools,” he says. He hopes that is sufficiently self-explanatory, but Alchemilla levels him with an expectant look, and his mouth dries again. “You were joining me, naked, resplendent.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gasps and her wrist disappears; her own pace quickens with urgency at his words, leaving him feeling punch-drunk at the sight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were before me, your mouth on my throat,” he continues. As before, he squeezes himself, nearly petrified by the thought of ending this prematurely. “That fantasy gave way to an entirely different one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” Alchemilla sighs, so low he almost misses it. “Was there more?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth parts the curtain of bushes and fronds in his mind to return to the Cythwood. His eyes clamp shut to bring it to the fore, words coming unbidden.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were above me, on me. My lap.” The burning of the silk returns, though it fades through the imagined sensation of laying in the grass, thighs slick with shared sweat, muscles tensing to lift her body. “We were...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Were you touching me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. No more than I had to.” He wasn’t sure why that was, why it felt forbidden even in his own mind. Try as he might, his hands remained outstretched, tearing at the bed of grass and leaves. “And then you weren’t on my lap any longer, instead on... on my face. My mouth to your...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth opens his eyes, dares to look in her direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shrugs off her sodden shirt, letting it fall to the floor with a soggy thump. Normally deft, her fingers struggle with her pants—she failed to take her boots off first in the rush, and her ankles are caught between articles of sticky leather. Her back slams against the bedroom door as she frees herself of one, then both boots, grunting in annoyance as she steps on her pants to pull herself free.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Despite the clumsy struggle, he thinks of it more as a wild dance; his heart skips a beat watching her throw her hair back and stand triumphant in only her smalls, arms akimbo. She strides across the short distance from the doorway to the bed, but goes stiff as soon as one knee depresses into the mattress.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“May I?” Alchemilla asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t sure how long he remains trapped in a semi-stupor, looking up at her from where he lay. Long enough, perhaps, for her to grow unsure, impatient, convictions wavering, as he feels the slightest push off the bed and throws his free hand out to stop her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t go,” he insists. “I hadn’t considered what would happen next. We, ah, never made it further than that. It was cut short, you see.” Aloth smiles wryly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She raises the back of her hand against her mouth to conceal a grin, the corners of her eyes crinkling and her nose scrunched. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Here, let me fix that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As she makes her way onto the bed, eventually coming to sit astride him, his eyes follow a circuit up her form. Her inner thighs are still cold, somewhat clammy from being trapped within wet pants; one droplet falls from her hair every twenty seconds, he counts. It cannot be much warmer within the cabin than it is outside, as her skin is pebbled with goosebumps, and the flowers tucked inside the moss on her shoulders have all shied away, closed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is nothing like his fantasies, or the dreams he has every second night of the week. It is, he decides, so much better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I started here,” Alchemilla says mostly to herself, carefully grinding down on his hips. Aloth’s teeth clamp down on his bottom lip, the skin breaking immediately on contact. “And I moved my way up. Alright.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She begins to shimmy, then stops.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that okay? Tell me if you’d like me to stop.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine, I promise. Thank you, though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Alchemilla resumes her climb until he feels her thighs framing his head, skin coming in contact with his ears. Something familiar, yet entirely new. He prays to all the gods that she cannot feel the burning of the helixes of his ears, nor sense the roaring sound that rushes between them as he looks up at her from below.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pulls the front of her underwear aside, suddenly bashful—“Didn’t mean to leave these on,” she supplies—and lowers herself, body trembling in its descent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth lifts his free hand and aims for her thigh, but she swats it away, head shaking. “No touching, like you said. No more than we have to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Uselessly leaving his hand to ghost around in her vicinity, he flicks his tongue out for the first taste. There are no similarities he can draw, aside from the light tang of salt and something otherwise metallic, though not unpleasantly so. Each nervous lick earns him a tremor, and he is pleased with himself to find she is already wet, desperately wanting. The flat of his tongue connects with her folds and drags up to her clit; he revels in her whimpers, the way her hand reaches down to card through his hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Habit tells him to close his eyes, to reach for himself and continue stroking, but he can’t tear his attention from her. Her body nearly folds over, one hand splayed against the wall opposite her, body illumined by the light burning gold outside, the rain finally allowing for a reprieve. Every mewl spurs him on faster, eyes widening while hers fly shut. Though untouched, his cock stirs each and every time she glides an inch forward and back, equally desperate to be used.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every so often she hefts herself up, pulls away from his rushed ministrations to catch her breath, which starts to become ragged. He can’t pull her back in—his hand is shaking at her side, fingers curling in the air in the absence of her around them. Puffs of hot breath escape him, warming her thighs and the apex of them, until she sits back down and he begins anew.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aloth,” she whimpers. His tongue retreats so that he may listen, but it only serves to make her move against him more recklessly. “In your—fantasies—did I get to—do I get to—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As words will not suffice, his tongue darts back out, steadier and more determined than before. The roaring between his ears returns as her thighs clamp together harder around his head and the flowers on her skin sprout open in intervals. The precipice is near, he is sure of it, from the heat blooming in his chest down to his navel, the telltale flame flickering in all of his extremities. He is miles away, back in the Cythwood while still here in her bed, beneath her in two places, denying himself pleasure as he devotes all his focus to hers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now she is close. She is </span>
  <em>
    <span>so, so</span>
  </em>
  <span> close. He does his utmost to maintain a diligent pattern, even as his lungs feel robbed of oxygen. She grows steadily more slick as he switches to sucking on her, and his name spills out of her mouth a hundred times over as her body tenses.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Alchemilla buckles with a sharp cry, using his forehead as a launchpad as she tears herself away from his mouth. A line of saliva still connects them, then breaks as he pants, able to hear again. Her movements are jerky as she tries to swing herself over him and slot herself against his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry, no warning,” she gasps between shallow breaths. “You didn’t say—and I couldn’t...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine. I enjoyed every moment I was given.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm.” She hums a shapeless tune as she sinks into the pillows beside him, a song he scarcely recognizes. The heat born between them begins to cool, giving way to the creep of nerves. He remembers his arousal, still obvious beneath the thin sheet, and that any moment the dream-like haze can and will fall apart, leaving him mostly naked and vulnerable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She turns her head to the side to look at him, and her smile wrests him from the teeth of anxiety.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You still with me?” she asks. Long lashes bat against the tops of her cheeks. A lone apple blossom opens in her hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“More present than ever,” he replies, shivering. The shutters clatter from a sudden wind, carrying the scent of ocean spray, sea life, and grog. His tongue brushes against his teeth and cheeks, still finding pockets that taste of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You seem... distracted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hard not to be.” Aloth nervously laughs, then chides himself inwardly for it. “Are you not—does this not bother you in the slightest?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is no hesitation when she replies, and the quickness is heartstopping. “No.” Alchemilla wets her lips. “To find you in here, well...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His heart remains frozen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I came back for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth’s sudden, loud exhalation drives a laugh out of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want to talk about this, I do. I really do. But I admit I’m a little distracted myself,” she says, and he follows her eyes down to his groin. “It’s unfair that we indulge in your fantasies, but not mine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Alchemilla motions to sit up, he pulls her back down. “No,” he says firmly. “Some other time, in another context. I’m afraid if you so much as touch me, it will be over just as quickly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm.” She mulls this over, biting the inside of her cheek to think. “You can’t go out like this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He averts his gaze. “Perhaps not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then indulge me in some other way, and I promise not to touch.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For all his wits, he doesn’t understand what she means. It isn’t until he spies her hand sliding underneath her underwear once more that he cottons on, and his cheeks turn dusky red at the implications. All it takes is one more utterance of his name from her to galvanize him, and his fingers are pulling the silk away, his body and ambitions bared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It has been an eternity, he thinks, that he has kept this up, and as soon as he pumps once he knows the end is nigh. Aloth tries to focus his eyes on a distant point past her, on the patina of her dresser knobs or her jewelry tree—all adorned with hoops and plunging necklaces—as it jingles to the rocking of the boat. But nothing is helping, nothing works as stark whiteness crowds the edges of his vision and leaves only Alchemilla’s face in view.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They exchange breath as their lips come closer, so terribly close that he can almost taste her again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth groans, the ideal of the bathhouse and the jungle too far away for him to latch onto, his eyes caught on her lips as they mouth instructions. His brows knit together, mind focusing on everything and nothing and still her mouth moves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever she’s saying—beyond his name, surely something vulgar—it’s replaced by the thought of those lips, that tongue, around his cock. The swirling motions, the heat of her mouth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She seems fixated on something herself, and before he tips over the edge, he dares to ask.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m imagining me,” she says. “Finally getting to kiss you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her palm cups his face and they bridge the gap, side by side, her lips capturing his as he shudders, trembles. Aloth’s grip loosens, melts and falls limp to his side as he struggles to catch his breath; his muscles spasming as he crests the wave of his orgasm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not far behind him, Alchemilla tenses, her kisses more fervent while her hand stills, her back arches. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I—you—“ Her train of thought derails and she chooses to pull him into her with both hands now free. He gives himself over willingly, nuzzles into her face. Fingers warm, skin cooling, petals drifting in the breeze that flows from above and through her hair. The setting sun slants through her eyes as she watches him, presses a kiss to his cheek, to his temple, his lips five times over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lone apple blossom is joined by a small army of more, and when she moves into him, with him, they rain down his shoulders. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth is struck then, now that the facade of lust has dropped, by how much he never wants to let her go. But she pulls herself from his arms at last, leaving him emptier than ever before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She dresses in flowy, dry clothes, sure to make the neckline as low as is appropriate. From downstairs comes the shattering of glass and raucous laughter, loose wonderings of where the captain has run off to. They’ll come looking for her soon enough, they know and say so with a shared look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have to go, I’m sorry. I wanted to discuss this, but we were meant to leave port tonight and sail to Hasongo...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aloth looks down and away. “I understand. Another time, perhaps? Granted they don’t intend to steal all of your time on this voyage.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t let them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Alchemilla comes back to the bed and crouches down to fish around inside a drawer close to the floor. When she comes back up, she takes his hand, depositing something metal into his palm, closes his fingers around it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Again, I’m sorry.” She kisses him one last time, sadness apparent in the way she must drag herself away. “Later, or tomorrow. Or the next day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she reaches the door, he opens his fist. A key.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Over her shoulder, she catches him looking, and grins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But if we’re not able to talk sooner: next time, don’t start without me.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I sit on my throne of dozens of Aloth/Watcher fluff fic ideas, and instead I pull this out. I keep thinking about my masquerade fic and how cute it's meant to be, and yet!!<br/>Ah, well, hopefully the concept wasn't <i>too</i> out there. It spawned from a conversation between me and my gf -- to which she wrote something of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904944">a companion piece</a>, a sort of opposite, with her Watcher and Edér -- and I ran with the concept in a slightly different direction.<br/>There is no sense of continuity between this and my other couple of Aloth fics, simply an idea that I found intriguing and wanted to play with for a few thousand words. I will endeavor to make the next fic <i>not</i> explicit, or at least try. I will try so hard.</p>
<p>If for some reason you wanna talk to someone about Pillars, you can find me on <a href="https://emryss.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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